


Birthday Mood

by Be_Right_Back



Series: Birthday ficlets [1]
Category: DUMAS Alexandre - Works, The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: BrOT4, Friendship, Gen, Prompt Fic, birthday fic, birthday prompt, it's silly it's dumb it's fluffy, les Inséparables are stuck in trees and there's really nothing more to it, set in a timeless limbo that's probably somewhere between s1 and s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23430625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Be_Right_Back/pseuds/Be_Right_Back
Summary: Prompt from 29Pieces:HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY!!😍😍ohhh in honor of a birthday, can we see the Muskies have some peril on Aramis's birthday? Maybe they're stranded somewhere and since they can't give him his presents, each one gives him their favorite memory of him??😍😍and a rescue at the end of course.
Series: Birthday ficlets [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685512
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	Birthday Mood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [29Pieces](https://archiveofourown.org/users/29Pieces/gifts).



> Don't know if that's quite what you had in mind, but I hope you like it ;)

“Well, this is fun,” d’Artagnan quipped from his tree, glancing wryly at the savage beasts roaming the forest below.

Porthos and Aramis gave him amused looks from where they sat, each perched on his own branch. Athos simply glared, looking like a man ready to just jump down and end it all out of sheer exasperation. Under them, the wild boards were still sniffing around, growling and snorting and being generally terrifying, and nothing like any sane man would want anything to do with.

“I can’t believe that the people here hunt these monsters,” Aramis said incredulously, studying the abominations of nature with all the nervousness of a curious and well-fed cat – which was to say, not nearly enough nervousness for a man sitting in a tree while _wild boars_ frolicked underneath. “How do they even eat them? Their hide are way too thick.”

“It’s got to take at least a week to make them edible,” d’Artagnan said, shuddering at the thought. Then he squinted, watching the forest ground intently, before whistling. “Look at that one!”

They all stared at the gigantic male sniffing around the base of Porthos’ tree.

“Damn,” Porthos muttered, impressed. “That thing must weigh something like six hundred pounds.”

“And it’s right below us,” Aramis sighed. “Well, gentlemen, it looks like we are well and truly stuck. I’m not wasting a shot angering any of them.”

“Trust Treville to send us in the most boar-infested part of France right in the middle of spring,” d’Artagnan complained darkly, glaring at the vibrant green leaves of the chestnut trees. “And it’s going to be worse after nightfall.”

The other three all grunted in agreement, terribly annoyed at the prospect of spending the next dozen hours or so on their branches. It certainly would not be the first time they had to stay up all night somewhere uncomfortable, and that fact did nothing to cheer them up as they contemplated the inevitable stiff necks and strained muscles.

“Should we try shouting at them?” Porthos asked after a short pause, because he really, really, _really_ didn’t fancy spending the night in that stupid chestnut tree. “Might scare them off, who knows?”

“I’ll take the wait, thank you,” Aramis replied. Then, to their collective confusion, he crossed himself. He rolled his eyes when he noticed their stares. “What? With tusks like that, they were clearly spawned by the devil.”

* * *

They had been up the trees for close to three hours when d’Artagnan’s head snapped up, and he stared at Aramis.

“It’s your birthday tomorrow!” D’Artagnan exclaimed, looking quite upset.

Aramis frowned thoughtfully, cocking his head as though the statement required any sort of deep consideration, and then snapped his fingers like he’d just resolved some great mystery.

“I do believe you’re right,” he told the younger musketeer. “I'm turning twenty-eight. I had completely forgotten.”

“Forgotten?” D’Artagnan repeated incredulously. “You can’t forget your birthday, that’s not a thing.”

Aramis shrugged. He looked remarkably disinterested by the topic.

“Honestly, birthdays are only special because people celebrate them. And we here are soldiers, it’s not like we wait for these kinds of occasions to have fun.”

“What about the gifts?” D’Artagnan asked.

He sounded almost offended by Aramis’ dismissal. Aramis made a vague noise that made Athos and Porthos smile. They knew Aramis’ stance on the matter.

“I don’t really need anything. But my hat is ever damaged, do feel free to buy me another.”

That got d’Artagnan to smile, although he was still baffled by the idea of someone not caring about their birthday. Then again, he was still a young lad. He hadn’t had that many of them, and they had to still feel special for him. Athos took pity on his dismay and propped himself against the trunk of his tree, facing d’Artagnan as best as he could.

“What is interesting is that despite Aramis’ lack of interest in birthdays, his own often manages to be rather special.”

“Special like Porthos’ last one?”

The aftermath of that particular celebration had involved Porthos getting sentenced to death and the subsequent uncovering of a plot to blow up Paris’ biggest slum, which they had managed to stop. Ironically enough, it had all been tied to a protestant family. The criminal they’d tracked to the Cévennes and lost in the forest where they were currently stuck in was a Huguenot, probably because fate liked to rhyme.

“Oh, just as special, yeah,” Porthos laughed. “Aramis, do we tell him some?”

“By all means,” Aramis grinned, shifting in his branch as he tried in vain to find a more comfortable position. “The story of how Athos and I got acquainted is one of my favorite.”

“You met on your birthday?” D’Artagnan couldn’t help but ask.

“Not quite,” Athos corrected. “I had already been a Musketeer for several weeks by then, and Aramis was one of the longest serving soldiers in the regiment. But we didn’t really know each other yet, and it was a surprise to us both when Treville decided to send us together on an errand.”

“To make a long story short, it all turned out to be a trap, and we were captured by a group of Englishmen,” Aramis supplied. “They were boring like you wouldn’t believe, and very bad at their jobs.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning they had no idea of how to extract any information from us,” Athos explained. He shifted on his branch, which elicited grunts from the curious boars below. Ignoring them, he continued the story. “Aramis had been rather quiet for the whole trip, because he did not know me well, but just enough to have noticed that I preferred quiet and solitude.”

From the next tree, Aramis snorted.

“The problem was that they held us for four days before we could escape. And the third was my birthday.”

“And as Aramis had been dreadfully bored for what he considered to be an intolerable amount of time, he decided to indulge his need to be himself. It was, after all, his birthday.”

“What did you do?” D’Artagnan’s eyes were shining with poorly disguised wonder.

“He whistled,” Athos said before Aramis had a chance to downplay what a horrible nuisance he had managed to be. “He whistled for the entire day. And the entire _night_.”

“He didn’t,” d’Artagnan said flatly.

Aramis could get restless, but to that degree?

“It proved useful!” Aramis grinned. “The next day, they opened the cell to gag me, and we easily overpowered them.”

“Took so long for them to do anything because they needed their officer’s approval first, and the man didn’t care about a prisoner whistling. Poor guards were exhausted from not getting any sleep,” Porthos said delightedly, obviously knowing the story by heart.

“How do you even whistle for that long?” D’Artagnan gaped, because they had to be pulling his leg. He shook himself. “Never mind that. Athos, how did you manage to stay sane?”

“I tuned him out,” Athos said. “But I’ll admit that when we arrived back at the garrison, I begged Treville never to send me on another mission with him.”

“And then he remembered that it was my whistling that got us out, and he saw the hastiness of his appraisal of me. He even bought me a drink to make up for the birthday I’d had to spend in a prison cell.”

“That’s… That’s a very _you_ story,” d’Artagnan said, still a little dumbfounded. Then he turned as best as he could to look at Porthos. “What’s the one you had in mind?”

“The day I learned that Aramis was the regiment’s best marksman,” Porthos grinned. “I’d never seen him shoot. I’d been a recruit for… I don’t know, two weeks? And here comes Bastien, telling me that it’s some Musketeer’s birthday and that we’re partying in the courtyard.”

Aramis’s expression suddenly turned very smug, and he casually started playing with his pistol, like he wasn’t hanging fifteen yards above the ground.

“Is that when you were first introduced to the melon-shooting tradition?”

“Worse than that, actually,” Porthos laughed. “Remember, I had no idea that Aramis was such a good shot. I didn’t know him then.”

“So what happened?”

Considering Aramis’ proud expression and Athos very resigned look, it could only be good.

“Aramis aimed at Treville.”

_He what?_

“He _what?!_ ”

“Aimed at Treville,” Porthos repeated. “He was very drunk, to be fair, drunk like you pup ain’t ever seen him. He saw Treville stepping out of his office, looked us dead in the eye and whipped a pistol from his belt.”

“Aramis, you didn’t,” d’Artagnan gasped, horrified.

“I was aiming at his hat, actually, not at Treville himself,” Aramis corrected, like it made any difference at all. “Porthos tackled me before I could shoot it.”

“Treville never found out,” Athos added. It had been quite self-evident, as Aramis was right there with them and had not been relegated to stable duty for the rest of his existence.

“Still, I’m the one that got given a hard time by the others,” Porthos said. “Really unfair, if you ask me, but they all made fun of me for panicking. And then they made me drink until I was just as drunk as them.”

“And then I shot ten apples off his head,” Aramis grinned. “I spent the next three weeks helping Serge in the kitchen, because Treville saw that last part. It was my first time trying it out, and let’s just say he wasn’t impressed.”

“But melon-shooting is allowed now?”

“Melons are bigger than apples,” Aramis pointed out philosophically, stretching like a cat. He almost lost his balance and swore. “Me almost shooting Treville was the closest I ever saw Porthos to having a fit. I’m lucky he didn’t knock me out.”

“Or worse,” Athos pointed out.

To say that d’Artagnan was impressed would have been a bit of an understatement. He had known right from the start that his friends were prone to stupid feats, Aramis especially always seeking the thrill of a good fight or of a reckless stunt. It was a good thing he knew them all so well know, because the portrait that Athos and Porthos had given of their friend was rather unflattering.

He decided to change that.

“My favorite birthday story about you isn’t about _your_ birthday,” d’Artagnan said, which made Aramis tilt his head. D’Artagnan smiled. “You always remember _our_ birthdays just fine, and you’re the one who reminded me about Constance’s three months ago.”

Aramis grinned.

“And I took you shopping. I made you buy her flowers and a brooch.”

“And that was the most humiliating experience of my life,” d’Artagnan groaned. He’d felt so silly, holding a bouquet and having to choose between various trinkets while Aramis lectured him on the proper way to treat a woman.

“There is nothing humiliating about being a gentleman,” Aramis sniffed haughtily. “Next time, I’ll make you buy her a dress and I won’t let you complain.”

“That’s fine,” d’Artagnan agreed. “Constance was really happy with the flowers and the gift. You’re better at birthdays than you say.”

“I’m better at other people’s birthdays,” Aramis corrected. “And you know what? That’s a pagan tradition anyway. The Greek started it.”

“Nuh-uh,” d’Artagnan protested, but Athos was already nodding.

“They did for their gods, originally.”

“Still, it’s a nice tradition,” Porthos felt the need to argue, because _he_ very much liked birthdays. “Surely God can forgive us for having fun.”

“God—” Aramis, started, but then he trailed off. He was staring at the forest ground in wonder. Looking up, he grinned at them. “God has just given me my birthday present.”

The boars had left while they were talking. Aramis climbed down the tree – hopped down, more like, excited at the prospect of spending the night in an actual bed with a real roof above.

Exchanging a look, his friends brushed the leaves and twigs off their clothes and followed suit.

**Author's Note:**

> So to explain what happened here, I've got to confess something... I got extremely self indulgent with this prompt, because I just love my region and I’m pissed that we never once saw the Musketeers in southern France. Like wtf? There were Spaniards down there! A ton more than in the north! And Huguenots! Tons of potential enemies!
> 
> I stranded our boys between what’s currently called la Lozère and le Gard, two départements (sort of counties) in the Cévennes (name of the geographical region). Basically, that was the heart of the Huguenot faith, Richelieu historically went there to pull a cardinal military leader on the place and make a catholic bastion right in the middle (a city called Alès), and it’s all 90% chestnut trees, mushrooms and boars.
> 
> Also, Sylvie's father Hubert really looks like he could be from the Cévennes, adding to my frustration that they never really explored France beyond Paris and the north-east border.


End file.
